CPDF hits AFP over Kalinga firefights

BEHIND THE SCENES

Alfred P. Dizon

It would do well for the military to refrain from making motherhood statements saying a certain province or region is “insurgency-free.”

In Kalinga for example, the military based there last year announced the province was rid of communist rebels.      

But on July 27, guerillas of the LejoCawilan Command-New People’s Army launched ambushes in Limos, Pinukpok and Poswoy, Balbalan. Three soldiers were killed while 13 were wounded in Limos and one wounded in Poswoy from the 51st DRC (Division Reconnaissance Company).

A statement from the Cordillera People’s Revolutionary Front said the military later made media statements on the matter with the intention to incite tribal wars by saying the three killed and most of the wounded soldiers were from the tribes of Kalinga.

CPDF spokesman Ka Daniel Dulag said Armed Forces of the Philippines 5th Infantry Division commander Major Gen. Lysander Swerte and 503rd IB commander Brig. Gen. Paul Atal, made statements saying the NPA violated international rules of war that prohibited the use land mines.

The CPDF said this was “smear propaganda of the military to deceive Kalinga tribes on who their real enemies are and to discredit the NPA.” More of the CPDF statement:        

“In reality, the “peace and development team” (PDT) operations, the AFP and CAFGU recruitment and the building of CAFGU detachments in the barangays of Kalinga tribes are essential parts of the on-going intensive militarization by the armed forces under OplanBayanihan. Certainly, the militarization of the tribes and the plunder of ancestral lands is fundamentally one of the forms of national oppression against national minorities in the whole Cordillera. As such, it destroys the “bodong” (peace pact) and inter-tribal unity, inflames tribal war among the tribes, and hides the fact that the entire AFP-PNP-CAFGU troopers are serving as the defense force for the unhindered entry of foreign capitalist large –scale mine, hydropower dams and geothermal energy projects that virtually grab and plunder the ancestral lands, deny and destroy the national minorities’ life, livelihood and resources.”

The truth of the matter is that militarization has resulted to various human rights violation in Kalinga. Since 2001 OplanBantayLaya of the past Arroyo Regime to the present OplanBayanihan,  AFP-PNP-CAFGU troops have killed a total of 35 unarmed and innocent civilians here in Kalinga alone and justice have been denied to all of them, as follows:

Three from Balbalan, namely Bayan Muna Leader Peter Dangiwan, Jeff Daoayan and Robert Sabado;

Five from Pinukpuk, specifically, Victor Balais, NoliSiwal, Richard Agustin and two others from Brgy.Pakawit;

Twelve  from Tabuk, likewomen leader Mercy Gonzalo, her husband Salvador Gonzalo and their son-in-law Charlie Kadater, Alex Noval, Jimmy Dalire and his 3 –year old daughter, Calanan Barangay Captain Gabriel Lumbican and his father, Elmer Gallema, Bayan Muna Leader Rafael “Markus” Bangit, Bayan Munacoordinator Alice Claver, and another civilian from Nambaran;

Twelve people, majority of whom from the Butbut and Mabaca tribes, who were massacred in Rizal, namely LakayUlliba, Pedro Ulliba, DelfinMadayag, Johny Gaspar Cayabo, BangiBakkay, AgyaoSabawil, AbokTayaan, Say-at Addawi, AlibBaklas, Juan Attang, and ConradoOrdonia;

Two from Lubuagan, i.e Rey Lugao from Brgy.Mabongtot and Brgy.Kagawad Rocky “Ongki” Abol from Upper Uma;

One from Tinglayan municipality, namely Abe Tiggangay from the Butbut tribe, specifically from Buscalan. Abe Tiggangay was the latest civilian victim killed by one from the 21st IB last Feb. 1, 2013.

To sum it all, there have been 20 incidents of human rights violations committed by the AFP-PNP-CAFGU in Kalinga since 2001. These 20incidents include 12 cases of murder, 5 attempted murder cases, 2 massacres and 1 attempted massacre. As a result of these, there have been 53 civilian victims, 35 of whom were killed as listed above, 12 wounded and 6 highly traumatized.

As expected, the smear-propaganda of the 5th ID, the 51st DRC, the 503rd IBde. and the 50th IB have proliferated to the broadcast and print media the tall tale that in the said July 27 ambush in Limos, Pinukpuk the NPA units used landmines, prohibited in the international rules of war.

This is a big lie!  For only command-detonated explosives, not banned by the international rules of war, were used in the aforesaid night ambush. The international Mine Ban Convention in its Ottawa Treaty, entitled “The 1991 Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and Their Destruction”, does not at all forbid the command –detonated land mines, which are the only type used by the NPA for specific military targets in various parts of our country.

What the international treaty bans are the non-command-detonated land mines scattered in large area and which might victimize unsuspecting civilians and wandering animals. Note that this treaty has not been signed by the United States of America while her mercenary armed forces – in their wars of intervention and aggression against countries that are strongly opposed to economic, political and socio-cultural control and global domination by US imperialism, the number one terrorist of the world – have used missiles that have totally destroyed populated areas and have killed a lot o civilians as what happened in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.

The Philippines is one of the 158 countries which have signed the Ottawa Treaty. Yet the US-AR 2 and its AFP-PNP top commanders have been and are consciously and maliciously distorting the provisions of this international covenant to malign the NPA as “terrorist” and deter the people’s attention from the fact that it is the reactionary armed forces that are the real terrorist that have harmed innumerable communities and unarmed civilians all over the Philippines due to airborne bombings, as what ensued in Apayao and Kalinga from mid-1980’s to mid-1990’s.

And what do you expect as regard the instant reward of these tangible terrorists? Suddenly, they become AFP chief of staff like then 503rd IBde Commander Brig. Gen. Hernando Irriberi – whose  forces savagely maltreated and mutilated the bodies of 8 NPA Red fighters killed in Tineg, Abra on October 10, 2011 and who directed the airborne bombings of the 3 barangays of the Bangilo tribe in Malibcong also in Abra in May 2013 – was immediately promoted as Philippine Army commander after these incidents, and is now the AFP Chief of Staff.” (This space is open to any response from the military or those alluded to.)